


Something Borrowed, Something Blue

by blueteak



Category: Vicky Bliss - Elizabeth Peters
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 04:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8875354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/pseuds/blueteak
Summary: Vicky and John's wedding. There may or may not be a stolen French artifact on the gifts table.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mairelon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mairelon/gifts).



It was a dark and blustery (but not, thank goodness, actually stormy) night, which gave Jen the perfect excuse to appear in her habitual dark black dress (habitual when it came to visits with me after she discovered my relationship with her darling son, anyway). 

When I sourly pointed this out, her darling son laughed and recited “But our love it was stronger by far than the love/Of those who were older than we,” in my ear and then shrugged off my not-so-whispered observation that I was no Annabel Lee and his mother was certainly no seraph, no matter how much she might wish both were true. 

“Well, at least she’s not wearing white,” he said, and gestured at the makeshift gift table where Gerda, clad in an off-white dress that looks eerily similar to the hastily purchased the garment I was wearing (which happened to be my wedding dress), was hovering over an elaborately wrapped package that could contain anything from part of a mummy (I hoped not) to a set of new luggage (I hoped so. It would soon come in handy).

Not trusting Gerda to restrain her mail and package opening instincts, even at a wedding, I made a beeline toward her. After all, it wasn’t just any wedding, it was my wedding, and she’d spent several years opening anything addressed to me that crossed her path. 

“Gerda!” I cried, in what I hoped was a welcoming, not accusing voice. 

She’d known me too long. At hearing my cry, she backed hard into the gift table, which gave an alarming wobble but did not tilt. “Dr. Bliss, I would not have opened them all, but Herr Direktor Schmidt asked me to keep an eye on anything that looked as though it may have come from France, and even though I no longer work for the museum and am about to have a child, I agreed to help and so….”

And goodness, now that she’d mentioned, the dress we had each chosen would accommodate a pregnancy remarkable well. I could already see Jen looking assessingly between Gerda and me, trying to see whether there was similarity in condition as well as garment. I’d just have to hope John didn’t see. Or Schmidt. 

“Congratulations, Gerda.” I skillfully maneuvered us so that we were no longer presenting ourselves in profile to Jen. “And thank you for your help," I said, trying to avoid sounding suspicious about why Schmidt would have deputized Gerda to snoop right after my own recent talk about France with the Munich police. "Short of the package starting to play “La Marseilles” when given a tap, however, I’m not sure how you’d be able to tell. And we only decided on the venue yesterday, so it’s unlikely that it could have been mailed directly here with stamps still on it.”

Gerda shrugged, probably too preoccupied with avoiding having me yell at her to have noticed anything was off, and was surprisingly tactful about not questioning the reason for our seemingly hastily planned nuptials. “It does not have to have been mailed from France to be from France,” she reasoned. “If I see the edge of what appears to be a Rodin or a Monet or a bit of Chartres Cathedral poking through the wrapping, then I will suspect I might have found what he is looking for.” 

The moment of terror that had been trying to seize me since Gerda mentioned France seized me. Karl Feder had been in touch about wanting me to help investigate something in France that he had yet to get clearance to give me details about. Had one of John’s former associates with an ax to grind somehow discovered our wedding date and decided to leave him holding a hot painting/necklace/crucifix/bit of cathedral at his own reception? Would he be arrested? Would I be denied our wedding night, putting me out and providing Schmidt with enough fodder to write his own sad, sad country music song? “The Denied Bride” and “Art Thieves’ Revenge” did have good rings to them.

Blind to my sudden horror over what might be lurking in the packages, Gerda leaned in closer. “I don’t believe it’s a Rodin or a Monet or a bit of Chartres. I believe it’s more likely Dr. Schmidt accidentally wrapped his palmier with his gift and that I’ll see it because the oil is leaking through the gift wrap.”

Well, that was certainly possible. Schmidt had purchased many gifts for us, gifts that had been delivered by footmen who bowed as they handed over the packages. He knew our sizes and tastes and had contacts everywhere. But he was also sentimental, and had probably found a knight’s helmet or crystal serving dish or something that called to mind either his ideas about John’s nobility or our evenings of feasting at my home and wrapped it himself last-minute for our last-minute wedding.

Yes, the wedding. Planned in haste not due to pregnancy, no matter what Jen feared or Schmidt hoped, or because we needed to quickly take advantage of the loophole preventing married people from having to testify against one another (though that would be an added benefit, given that the statute of limitations for some of John’s escapades hadn’t expired yet). In fact, some of the planning hadn’t even been all that hasty. John and I had had to fill out form upon form, as we hadn’t been able to agree on whether to get married in Germany, the U.K., or the States, and we'd wanted to keep our options open. As a result of all the paperwork, I went from not knowing John’s actual surname for most of our acquaintance to knowing his actual passport number. I could also probably draw his fingerprints from memory at this point.

Ashraf, we’d decided, owed us a gorgeous wedding and reception at the Winter Palace, but we felt we risked art thief revenge intrigue whenever we entered the country now and wouldn't dare invite our friends and relations to what might well become a reception that would involve dodging gunfire and finding an unoccupied tomb to hide in. I'd probably have had to use my bouquet to brain someone. Indeed, we’d been jittery enough at Feisal and Saida’s wedding, beautiful though it had been. Those jitters would have been a lot more noticeable for our own wedding. It would never have done to look fearful and suspicious while listening to one another vow to love one another in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and so on.

However, aside from knowing that we didn’t want to get married in Egypt, we couldn’t agree on anything else (hence the paperwork for three countries). The States would likely have been too expensive, though the family situation was better. John had charmed my parents so thoroughly that when he looked wounded during our arguments, they invariably took his side. And in deference to his American bride-to-be, John had started re-reading more American writers, particularly Poe.

John had also not stolen anything in the United States, ever. Not even a pack of gum. This put it over the edge in the "plus" column for me. Unfortunately, my mother had purchased some bridal magazines full of gaudy bows and couples posed together in "whacky" adventure situations (John helpfully suggested the delightful "Fleeing in gallibayas" look for us), which made it a less attractive option. My mother was really wedded to giving me an enormous, gaudy celebration, and even though we had insisted on paying for it, we still felt like we wouldn't want to disappoint her with our non-"adventurous" choices. So, unless I wanted to pay a small fortune for a photographer to capture John dressed in a tuxedo while standing next to a fake lamb, our wedding wouldn't be in the United States. I have to confess that for John and the lamb it would have been worth it, but for the fact that I would also have been in the picture. In one of those Little Bo Peep wedding dresses. 

So. The U.K. was also a possibility, except for the small fact that John’s mother hated me and his cousin had tried to frame him for the theft of King Tut. There wouldn’t have been any bridal showers there that didn’t involve buckets of blood, a la _Carrie_. Still, it was home for one of us, and that home was remarkably picturesque. 

And, finally, there was Munich. It had been my home now for a long time. It was where John and/or I most often recuperated from being stabbed/cut/or shot at. And from November through February, we had the option of beautiful (and free!) snowy scenery in a fairytale city for our photos. 

Finally, after yet another argument about what wedding colors and other general décor we would absolutely vs. absolutely not have to have, I’d finally given in to his family’s tradition of the woman proposing to the man. Except, of course, that I’d made him propose months ago. No, by “propose” I meant that I had informed him that I would decide when and where we got married and what I, at least would be wearing. Framing it as being part of his own family's tradition made it hard for him to argue. Either that or he had secretly relished the opportunity to get back to scheming something other than subtly subversive wedding readings.

As the ultimate fed-up wedding planner, I had also decided not to tell anyone about these plans until a week before the wedding. Or two weeks, if I was feeling generous. We had spent too much time planning for an event that would be beautiful (or schmaltzy and too expensive, depending on who you talked to), and was in very real danger of being disrupted by another case (John had a tally of the times I'd said "I told you so" since Feder had visited my office a day ago). 

I had decided, then, that I would chose the date and time after looking at John’s calendar, and we could see which of our friends and relatives could come on the day. I didn’t care if it just ended up being the two of us. We could have a party at my house in Munich to celebrate on a night when people were free, if that wound up being the case. And then we could have a party at my family's house, fake lamb and all, as well as a gathering in Cornwall. Let the chips fall where they may. 

The chips had fallen at a civil ceremony earlier in the day and a reception at a cozy restaurant around the corner from the museum. An entire back room had happened to be free (I suspected Schmidt’s hand in this) and a surprising number of people had been able to attend, from former colleagues like Gerda to former flames like Tony. And, of course, Jen. And Karl Feder, who also seemed to be hovering suspiciously near the gifts table. At least he hadn’t ruined the wedding.

Before I could consider all the ways Feder could still ruin this wedding, John grabbed me, spun me around, and gave me a kiss so blistering I blushed. 

"We're under the mistletoe," he said, as though this excused possibly scandalizing his mother.

Then it occurred to me: why should his mother be scandalized? "We're married," I said softly, reminding myself. After everything, we really were married. 

John looked down. It seemed as though he would be as cowardly about facing our new status as he was about saying "I love you." I might get a sarcastic "My lady wife," out of him from time to time, but other than that....

And then I was being kissed again, tenderly but no less passionately. "We are. And now it's time to celebrate. Alone."

Schmidt loaned me a jacket and hat and Gerda loaned John her wrap and hat so that we could sneakily make our escape to our fancy hotel room (courtesy of Schmidt, of course).


End file.
